This is a good thing to unveil on this Independence Day, under this government

Government Information Awareness is a project to provide American people a comprehensive database of what the government agents in the US are doing. This turns the table on the awful Total Information Awareness. Oh yeah. They want us to call it Terrorism Information Awareness now.

According to this Wired article:

The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government.

GIA was inspired by the federal government's Terrorist Information Awareness, or TIA, program. Government officials have said that TIA's sole purpose is to identify potential terrorists by comparing information in a broad range of databases that might point to patterns indicative of terrorist activity.

But many privacy advocates see TIA as an overly intrusive effort to monitor Americans' lives in minute detail, from credit card purchases to travel plans.

Bureaucrats who think they can use technology to intrude unnecessarily on peoples' lives seem about to find out the sword cuts both ways. If technology can be used to oppress, that same technology can be used to enlighten.

“If we are to maintain a democracy, it's crucial to ensure accountability,” said [MIT assistant professor Christopher] Csikszentmih‡lyi. “At least as much effort should be spent developing technologies that allows citizens to track their government as for government to monitor civilians.”

With the current government abusing the Bill of Rights and trying to keep its citizens filled with fear while answering only to corporations, a project like GIA really is a ray of hope towards making We, The People relevant again.

kherr @ 23:50 CDT | link | politics